Lots of us have encountered this scene in the battlegrounds (BGs:) There’s the Pally, let’s start working on him. I’tll take awhile, but…. WTF!?! (appear at spirit healer)

About That Squishing Noise…

Yes, right now is the time of the Retribution Paladin. They’re lean, mean, squishing machines laying waste to anyone who stands in their way. I don’t play a Pally, my 40 is collecting dust right now, but I’ve been on the receiving end of a few of them in the BGs. It’s not bad if I can land a dismantle and they don’t bubble, but otherwise? I’ve never been slaughtered quite so quickly.

Not that I know what I’m doing, but sheesh.

I’m of two minds on this, especially for long time players. For ages Pallies have been underpowered in some areas and the subject of much complaining from their fans (and which class hasn’t?) so it’s kinda cool that they are now the destruction/murder machine of choice. On the other hand, since I play a Rogue… 😉

My kid has been playing Paladins and Warriors since the original beta, claims they are his favorite classes, and has complained about their damage and abilities for as long as he’s been playing them. I tease him about being a masochist, since those are his classes of choice and their damage has traditionally been …lacking. I’ve also been kidding him about how he must hate the current situation with the Ret. Pally running roughshod over everything.

Word has it that in the Wrath of the Lich King beta test characters were balancedÂ for level 80, but that too little testing was done at the lower levels. The call from dead and envious players, since the 3.0 patch on the 14th, has been heard and the official word is that the nerf is coming (which will make my kid happy. I think. )

Supposedly the nerf is going to clip the burst damage, but will leave longer term DPS about the same. We’ll see. Buffs and nerfs (and patches) usually have their fair share of unintended side-effects.

So What’s the Word?

This post pretty much covers what the fuss is about:

Retribution Paladins: Fair and Balanced – So I tried my hand as a Retribution Paladin this weekend. I had heard all the complaints about how overpowered Retribution was at the moment, so I thought I would get some first hand experience for myself. …

WoWinsider notes the the coming changes are aimed at PvP Paladins and will leave PvE pretty much (in theory) unchanged. It also has a Ret build for PvE types.Â I’m going to log into my rust coveredÂ Pally right now and playÂ with them for aÂ few.

Patch 3.0.2 primer for Retribution Paladins – Retribution deals so much pain that we’ve sent the rest of player base running to Ghostcrawler crying for a nerf. And we’re getting nerfed. To the ground. Don’t panic. The changes are really, mostly aimed at PvP Paladins — okay, …

Are Retribution Paladins Overpowered? – Half the challenge of playing a Ret paladin is actually getting to melee range. It’s not like Retribution can Charge or Stealth or Death Grip. If a player lets a Ret paladin get in range, she has already lost half the battle. …

Zuggy (a hardcore PvPer) has some blue posts on Blizzard’s thoughts about the incoming nerfs:

Retribution Paladin Nerfs Incoming – There’s no denying that retribution paladins are insanely overpowered and fortunately (or unfortunately depending…) the nerf stick was officially confirmed earlier this evening. While there are some needed changes to the class to …

And SpoonCraft has details on some of the specific nerfs:

Retribution Paladin Changes Coming Soon (Oct. 17th) – As I stated yesterday, we are happy with Retâ€™s PvE damage and sustatined damage in PvP, but were concerned that the burst damage in PvP could be too high. We discussed this for literally hours yesterday, which was certainly not the …

So what are your thoughts on the Retribution Pallies and their current or upcoming states?

Yeah, right. So based on that I’d have to say that everyone else sucks more. At the time I wrote the post the Ret Pallies were pretty much steamrolling everything in BGs and Arena. So they either figured out how to time their cooldowns to best effect or almost everyone else lost a few points in competence.

I haven’t paid much attention to them recently, so maybe I’ll look into it and see where they stand.

codewahn, you’re a rogue and the paladin wears DPS-plate and wields a massive two-hander. Of course he is going to crush you a lot easier than you can crush him. Oh wait, a good rogue -CAN- take out a good Retadin. You have the skills, use them. I’m sorry if I’m sounding like a stereotype of a Retibution Paladidn, but another class not using their appropriate skills is usually the case when the Retadin flat outs crushes them.

Not saying you’re a bad player but I get the feeling you are letting the negative hype affect your skill. =/

Yeah, you’re right. I never claimed to be any great shakes at PvP, though I enjoy it. That said, Ret Pallies are still killing machines, but they aren’t unkillable. You’re right that you do have to play to your strengths and understand their weaknesses.

Ya keep talking about getting owned pwned or squishd by ret pallys but at wat lvl are ya talking about? Ima lvl 72 ret pally and i do damage but im not killing left and right nd not owning 5 lvls above me. Plus ret pallys do not have enough attacks after crusader attack, divine storm, a judgement strike, nd maybe concecration there is nothing left beside hammer of wrath. i think thye need more attacks and atleast one more ranged attack!

High level with good gear (about the same with any class, right?) I haven’t played a pally to that level yet, I’m just going by what I’ve seen in PvP and by what others are saying. You can probably pick up some good tips on the WoW Pally forums.

Well, Ret Pally’s killed me faster than anything else and a lot of people seem to agree. Last I looked they were at or near the top of the “destruction machine” list. I expect the mix will change with Cataclysm and maybe some other class will become the reigning death machine.

As you say, they’re not the “one and only” class to kill peeps with; look at the AJ arena rankings and you’ll see a bunch of classes. Pally’s have also received some light nerfs since I wrote that post. They still kick some serious butt, though.

Lots of us have encountered this scene in the battlegrounds (BGs:) There's the Pally, let's start working on him. I'tll take awhile, but.... WTF!?! (appear at spirit healer)
About That Squishing Noise...
Yes, right now is the time of the Retribution Paladin. They're lean, mean, squishing machines laying waste